With More Private Giving, Bloomberg Forges Ties

By SAM ROBERTS and JIM RUTENBERG

Published: May 23, 2005

As a self-made billionaire, Michael R. Bloomberg was one of the nation's leading philanthropists well before he ran for mayor of New York in 2001. He has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to a wide variety of causes -- mostly to educational institutions and medical research -- from his own personal fortune, through family foundations and through his financial information services corporation, Bloomberg L.P.

But in the four years since his first mayoral race, the breadth of his philanthropy has expanded starkly. Now, many more community and cultural groups and social-service organizations in New York City are as likely to be beneficiaries as are medical centers in Baltimore or professorships at Harvard. And as Mr. Bloomberg gears up for a re-election campaign, the vast impact of his charitable contributions -- a total of about $140 million in donations last year alone to more than 800 institutions and groups, a growing number of them local -- is emerging as a potentially formidable weapon as he cultivates alliances in all five boroughs.

All incumbents dispense favors. But Mr. Bloomberg's personal wealth has made him a modern-day Medici -- a role that, some critics say, can also stifle dissent from institutions that have quietly absorbed city budget cuts because they worry that what the mayor gives he can also stop giving.

''It's an unusual picture: a mayor whose generosity we sincerely appreciate as a person, countered by cuts,'' said Tom Finkelpearl, executive director of the Queens Museum of Art, which received $100,000 last year through Mr. Bloomberg's ostensibly anonymous gift to the Carnegie Corporation of New York. ''There's no question there's a different dynamic.''

Through a spokesman, Mr. Bloomberg declined to comment for this article. His generosity as mayor has been consistent with a lifelong belief in philanthropy; he has said that his parents gave what they could, typically $25 or $50, to causes like the local parent-teacher association, their synagogue and the N.A.A.C.P. Mr. Bloomberg has established trusts for his two daughters, but has said he hopes to give much of his money away before he dies. One of his favorite sayings is that the best measure of a successful philanthropist is that his check to the undertaker bounces.

The mayor's aides insist his philanthropy is not driven by politics. Moreover, most of Mr. Bloomberg's donations are delivered without fanfare and many are made anonymously -- though the source often seems to be an open secret.

''He's not looking for attention,'' said Edward Skyler, his communications director. Yet through the last few years, the mayor's pool of beneficiaries has grown, expanding geographically and ethnically throughout the city, in a pattern that suggests a greater sensitivity to the needs of smaller, lesser-known institutions -- a pattern that, however motivated, cannot help but redound politically to Mr. Bloomberg.

''Privately or as the mayor, he's come into contact with different issues that influence his philanthropy,'' Mr. Skyler said.

In some cases, the mayor's gifts have helped soften the blow of his administration's own cutbacks to cultural groups and social-service providers, earning him good will at a time of fiscal austerity. Other donations seem to have helped him win the respect of leaders whose organizations might not have gravitated to his candidacy.

From 1997 to 2000, the number of groups that got donations from Mr. Bloomberg and had Harlem in their names grew from 2 to 6, then to 13 in 2003. The number whose names include Staten Island went from 2 in 1999 to 8 in 2003; the Bronx, from 0 in 1997 to 6 in 2003; and Brooklyn, from 3 in 1997 to 13 in 2003.

Among the more recent beneficiaries of the mayor's largess are the Asian American Arts Alliance; the Ballet Hispanico; the Bronx Council on the Arts; the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation; One Hundred Black Men Inc., a civic group; the Haitian Centers Council; and the Staten Island Symphony.

Another relative newcomer was the Abyssinian Development Corporation, founded by the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, a politically influential Harlem minister who all but endorsed Mr. Bloomberg for re-election in February, calling him ''a fairly generous man where poor people are concerned.'' Dr. Butts, who backed Mark Green in 2001, said last week that he was referring to Mr. Bloomberg's international giving and that the donations to his church's economic-development corporation were ''not a whole lot'' -- about $30,000 over three years.

Asked whether the mayor's generosity was a political asset, he replied: ''It doesn't hurt. It really doesn't hurt. But if we disagree on some major issue, I'm not for sale.''

In December, the Dance Theater of Harlem was able to reopen its landmark school after raising $1.6 million -- $500,000 of which came, officially anonymously, from Mr. Bloomberg. Dr. Butts is on the theater's board.

Mr. Bloomberg has also given $30 million, again, ostensibly anonymously, since he took office in 2002, to be distributed through the Carnegie Corporation, headed by his friend Vartan Gregorian, including $75,000 to the Alianza Dominicana and $50,000 to Aspira of New York, a Hispanic education and advocacy group. He has personally contributed millions of dollars more through the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York.